Former President Trump slammed ABC News on Wednesday for its handling of the debate with Vice President Harris, suggesting he might not be interested in participating in another debate before Election Day.
Trump called into Fox & Friends the morning after the debate and repeatedly criticized ABC over fact-checking his comments compared to Harris, at one point suggesting the network's license should be revoked.
“It was three to one. It was a rigged deal, just as I predicted,” Trump said.
“A lot of people are outraged by this. You know, there are corrupt news organizations. There are a lot of bad people out there. It's astonishing,” the Republican presidential candidate continued. “I think ABC took a big hit last night. To be honest with you, they're a news organization and they have to be accredited to report. They should have their accreditation revoked for behaving in this way.”
Trump took particular issue with the moderator's failure to refute Harris' rendition of his own comments about the 2017 riots in Charlottesville, Virginia, and with her rendition of Trump's assertion that there would be a “bloodbath” if Trump loses in November. Trump and his supporters have said Harris' comments were specifically referring to the economy.
Republicans spent the rest of the debate attacking the moderators, accusing them of going too far in fact-checking the former president.
Harris repeatedly tried to get on Trump's nerves during Tuesday night's debate, and was often successful as Trump veered off topic to topics like the size of the audience, President Biden and a plot against Trump about migrants kidnapping pets in an Ohio town.
The vice presidential campaign quickly called for a second debate in October.
A rapid CNN poll found that 63% of debate viewers said Harris won, while 37% said Trump won.
In an interview Wednesday morning, Trump cited several social media polls, including one posted by C-SPAN, that showed him receiving more votes than Harris.
When asked if he would take part in another debate, the former president said, “I have no intention of participating.”
“I'm not going to do that because I won the debate by a large margin,” he replied, “but I think I'm going to let it cool down and see what happens.”
Fox News sent a letter to both campaigns on Tuesday night offering to host the debate at one of three battleground states in October, but Trump said he would not attend such a debate if it was moderated by Martha MacCallum and Bret Baier, who have moderated past presidential debates.
“I don't want to ask Martha and Brett,” Trump said, adding that he would be open to having a more opinionated host like Sean Hannity, Jesse Waters or Laura Ingraham host instead. “Let's give other people a chance. I thought Martha and Brett did a poor job last night.”
“Fox & Friends” co-host Brian Kilmeade quickly interjected to defend his colleagues.
“Brett and Martha will do a great job,” Kilmeade said. “I think they'll be very fair.”
